(Some say his queen) was forced to speak or burst:
And is not mine, my friend, a sorer case,
When every coxcomb perks them in my face?
‘Good friend, forbear! you deal in dangerous things,
I’d never name queens, ministers, or kings:
Keep close to ears, and those let asses prick,
’Tis nothing’—Nothing? if they bite and kick?
Out with it, Dunciad! let the secret pass,
That secret to each fool, that he’s an ass: 80
The truth once told (and wherefore should we lie?)
The Queen of Midas slept, and so may I.
You think this cruel? Take it for a rule,
No creature smarts so little as a fool.
Let peals of laughter, Codrus! round thee break,
Thou unconcerned canst hear the mighty crack:
Pit, box, and gallery in convulsions hurled,
Thou standest unshook amidst a bursting world.
Who shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through,
He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew: 90
Destroy his fib or sophistry, in vain,
The creature’s at his dirty work again,
Throned in the centre of his thin designs,
Proud of a vast extent of flimsy lines!
Whom have I hurt? has poet yet, or peer,
Lost the arched eyebrow, or Parnassian sneer?
And has not Colley still his lord, and whore?
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore?
Does not one table Bavius still admit?
Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit? 100
Still Sappho—‘Hold! for God’s sake—you’ll offend:
No names—be calm—learn prudence of a friend.
I too could write, and I am twice as tall;
But foes like these’—One flatterer’s worse than all.
Of all mad creatures, if the learned are right,
It is the slaver kills, and not the bite.
A fool quite angry is quite innocent:
Alas! ’tis ten times worse when they repent.
One dedicates in high heroic prose,
And ridicules beyond a hundred foes: 110
[288–93]